Israel has turned Gaza into a graveyard for tens of thousands of children (Photo source: The New Arab)
By Michael J. Talmo
THE REAL FACTS
March 26, 2026
The title of this article is a frequently used bogus tactic to justify censorship and other oppressive laws that people would normally never agree to. When used for this purpose, “think of the children” becomes a logical fallacy, which “are errors in reasoning that render an argument invalid” and “that are often delivered with a conviction that makes them sound as though they are proven facts.” It’s a variation of the appeal to emotion fallacy “that involves manipulating people’s emotions.”
Using protecting kids to fuel moral panics has a long history. As explained in this Fielding Graduate University article, “Politicians have always used moral panics to generate votes” and that “there is no evidence that the proposed bans will achieve the intended goals.” Even Republican Party strategist and radio talk show host Michael Reagan (1945-2026), adopted son of former President Ronald Reagan, called the protecting kids argument “illogical” and “obvious political BS.” Nevertheless, both Democrats and Republicans continue to use it, and most people continue to fall for it, because of our Judeo-Christian culture’s obsession with sexual purity. Invoking protecting children effectively shuts down all rational discussion by playing on people’s fears and sexual inhibitions.
But invoking the protecting children argument is not a fallacy when real danger is involved. And let’s face it, children in the US and many parts of the world are in terrible danger, not from controversial internet topics, learning about racist history, or learning about and interacting with LGBTQ people, but from war, famine, disease, and oppressive government laws and policies. These things are very real and are usually carried out by the self-proclaimed morally righteous people who claim they want to protect children, which makes them the greatest danger to them. But Trump and his cronies have taken cruelty to a whole new level. As someone who cares about and values truth and justice, I’m appealing to you, Trump supporters: take an honest look at the horrible people and policies you’re defending.
Gaza
On October 7, 2023, Hamas led what was called a surprise, multi-pronged attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip, which resulted in the deaths of 1,200 Israelis and the abduction of some 250 hostages. Israel’s response was immediate and savage. The UN reported that 40,000 Palestinians were killed in retaliation within the first 10 months alone.
Supporters of Israel want people to believe that the attack by Hamas was unprovoked. Utterly false. The xenophobic Zionist fascists have always wanted an exclusively Jewish state. They have oppressed, terrorized, and stole the land of the Palestinian people for the past 130 years with the help and support of the UK and later the US. The Israelis have killed far more Palestinians than have ever killed them. But let’s just focus on the current conflict.
In November 2023, the New York Times reported that “Israeli officials knew about Hamas’ plan to attack more than a year before it happened. Israel did nothing about it because they claimed that they considered the plan too difficult for Hamas to carry out. In my opinion, that’s a lie. Israel wanted an excuse to destroy all of Gaza. As of October 2025, CBS News reported that Israel has killed, maimed, and starved an estimated 61,000 children since the war began with the blessings and funding of the US government under Biden and Trump. And that horrendous toll on human life has been grossly underestimated by a whopping 41% according to a February 2025 study published in The Lancet.
As reported here, here, here, here, here, and here, the Israeli military has mercilessly killed Palestinians in Gaza merely for approaching food banks to avoid dying of thirst and starving to death. In fact, NBC News reported that these are death trap schemes. Israel tells the Palestinians to go to so-called “safe zones” where they can get food, water, and medical care so snipers and other military personnel can shoot them in the head or chest, which includes children. Can you think of anything more disgusting and vile than that? Naturally, Human Rights Watch correctly reported that these acts of sadistic cruelty, which are backed by the US government, are “war crimes.”
In America, most Jewish people oppose Israel’s atrocities. What about you Trump supporters? Look at these photos. Do you like what you see?
Al Jazeera, January 30, 2025 Sky News, October 7, 2024
Sky News, January 20, 2025 UN News, August 24, 2025
CBS News, April 18, 2025 Independent, April 5, 2024
SBS News July 2025 Yahoo News June 2024
Al Jezeera, March 27, 2024 Washington Post, July 7, 2024
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Since Trump took office, Human Rights Watch reported on the inhumane treatment and abuse that people are being subjected to in ICE detention facilities, which includes children. I’m not just talking about teenagers. I’m talking about much younger children and even babies. Here are some examples, all documented and reported from credible sources.
Baby Amalia, an 18-month-old toddler, was held with her parents at Dilley, an ICE detention center in Texas, which is really a prison. Pediatricians declared it unsafe for children. Yet, hundreds of children are being held there. During that time Amalia, who was healthy when she got there, soon became very ill with a 104 fever. She was on the verge of dying and was rushed to a hospital in San Antonio suffering from severe respiratory distress. Her mother, but not her father, was allowed to go with her.
Amalia was treated for pneumonia, COVID-19, RSV, and severe respiratory distress. After 10 days she was released with daily medication that she was required to take along with a nebulizer and nutritional supplements. Instead of allowing Amalia and her mother to return to their home, ICE sent them back to Dilley and confiscated the medication, the nebulizer, and the supplements. The parents begged ICE to give the aforementioned back, and the pieces of shit refused. A court order got Amalia and her family out, which saved the child’s life.
I’m asking you, Trump supporters: Did this innocent little child deserve to be treated so cruelly? Do you really want to defend this Trump supporters? Here is Amalia. Look at her.
PBS and other news sources reported that children being detained by ICE are being fed food contaminated with worms and mold and that they don’t have access to decent medical care. They also have limited access to clean drinking water. Children are sad, depressed, and distraught.
Do you condone this, Trump supporters? This is what Trump ordered. Do you still want to support him? Is this what you are defending?
On September 30, 2025, ICE raided a five-story apartment building in Chicago, Illinois. Time and Newsweek reported that in the pre-dawn hours a horde of ICE agents, lowered on ropes from helicopters onto the roof, proceeded to make their way through the apartment building. They kicked down doors, threw flashbang grenades, tore adults and screaming children out of their beds, bound their hands with zip ties, marched them outside, and threw them into U-Haul vans across the street in a parking lot. Neighbors who witnessed this appalling spectacle said that some of the adults and children were stark naked. “It was heartbreaking to watch,” said one neighbor. “Even if you’re not a mother, seeing kids coming out buck naked and taken from their mothers, it was horrible.”
This military-style raid was part of an anti-immigrant crackdown that the Trump administration dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz.” FBI, US Border Patrol, and ATF agents also participated in the raid, which was condemned by the entire state and by the governor, who said that children were also separated from their parents and kept in dark vans for hours. A comprehensive 2025 study found that children subjected to this kind of forced separation “were found to be at significantly higher risk for emotional problems and psychosis.”
What about you, Trump supporters? Are you okay with subjecting children to this kind of trauma? Does it make you feel proud and strong?
As reported here and here, in 1997 courts ruled that children (anyone under 18) can’t be held in ICE detention longer than 20 days. It was put in place because the courts recognized how traumatic confinement for children can be. Since Trump took office in January 2025, that directive has been flagrantly violated.
Another problem is abruptly deporting families without giving them access to a lawyer nor any time “to plan for children’s schooling and housing in the country they were deported to” nor take their belongings or medications that parents or their children need as had been done prior to Trump’s second term because “giving families the time to make those arrangements is critical for their safety.” As a result, in 2025, a 4-year-old boy with stage 4 kidney cancer was deported without his medication; after being in ICE detention for two months, Yerson and Kelly Vargas, along with their 6-year-old daughter were deported to Columbia without being given a chance to reclaim their belongings. They lost their car, their child’s toys, their clothes, and their cat, which a neighbor saved from dying of neglect; a 6-year-old boy who is deaf was deported without his hearing devices. These are just a few examples of Trump’s reign of terror.
Even more damning, a 2025 United States Senate investigation led by Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, going back to January of that year, cited hundreds of reports of abuse, “including accounts of miscarriages, child neglect, and sexual abuse at ICE detention centers in dozens of states.” Among the worst cases of abuse: “a pregnant woman reportedly bled for days before being taken to a hospital, only to miscarry alone without medical attention”; other women’s prenatal checkups, which are essential for early detection and treatment of medical problems, were denied for weeks at a time; “another child recovering from brain surgery was reportedly denied follow-up care”; the investigation found “systemic mistreatment of pregnant women and children in US custody.”
How do you feel now, Trump supporters? Do any of these horrible acts of cruelty make you think that maybe you shouldn’t have voted for Donald Trump?
Gutting the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
USAID was founded in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963). Over the years it has been
“working in more than 100 countries to promote global economic prosperity, advance food security, strengthen democracy, protect human rights, improve public health, and provide humanitarian assistance.” Both the Democratic and Republican parties of the 1960s saw it as a vital tool for the safety of the United States by promoting good will by establishing friendly relationships with other countries.
A 2025 study published in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet “estimates that USAID programs have saved over 90 million lives over the past two decades” alone. But the Trump administration is oblivious to these facts and last year gutted USAID like a fish, “cancelling 83% of its programs,” claiming that “the agency has misspent billions in funds and has little to show since the end of the Cold War.” The study in the Lancet refutes this assertion and found that steep cuts combined with eliminating the agency entirely “could lead to 14 million additional deaths by 2030” and that “4.5 million” of those deaths will be “children younger than 5 years” of age.
And if that isn’t enough dead children, Trump supporters, there’s more.
Trump’s One Big Disgusting Bill
On July 4, 2025, Donald Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” into law. In reality, there is nothing beautiful about it, which is why I humbly renamed it.
Researchers at Yale University and at the University of Pennsylvania explained that this law will slash federal funding for Medicaid by a trillion dollars, which will force people off of it and create more barriers to get it, which includes work requirements that proved disastrous when Arkansas implemented them. These work requirements will also create bureaucratic barriers that will cause people already working to lose their Medicaid coverage. This garbage law will also stop millions of people from signing up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act by shortening enrollment periods and by eliminating subsidies that help pay for it, which will, in many cases, make their premiums double, triple, or, in some cases, go up well over five times higher. All of this will ultimately result in a 60% increase in people without medical insurance, which will result in “a 60% increase in the insured population and 51,000 preventable deaths per year.”
While there is currently no available data as to how many of those 51,000 annual deaths will be children, you can bet that at least a few thousand more children will be among them.
Now I ask you Trump supporters: How many more children must needlessly die? How do millions of dead children in the US and throughout the rest of the world make America great again?